


On the day of Christmas

by Aproclivity



Series: 12 Days of Stragan Christmas [2]
Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: 12 Days of Christmas, Alex's gotta Alex, Charlie IS Doctor Martindale fight me, F/M, Fluffiness, Hand Feeding, Light Angst, Missing scene 212, Missing scene: pre 301, Psychic Richard Strand, Ruby taught Richard how to pick locks, Strand's gotta Strand, THESE FUCKING NERDS, There Was Only One Room, This is going to be a hodgepodge, getting this nerds together, minor injury mention, missing scene 305
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aproclivity/pseuds/Aproclivity
Summary: A series of 12 fics or fic parts that are Stragan based.Prompt 1: There's only one room and Alex won't stop singing 'This is Halloween.' In August.Prompt 2: Alex and Richard playing on swings at a park no one goes to anymore. (Missing 212 scene)Prompt 3:  I know that I hurt you. I know that nothing I can say will change the past. But…I’m hoping that you’ll forgive me in the end. I’m hoping that I can make this right. (Missing 301 scene)Prompt 4: Alex feeding Richard by hand.
Relationships: Alex Reagan/Richard Strand
Series: 12 Days of Stragan Christmas [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570870
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	1. This is August!

**Author's Note:**

> Also, this story is part 3 of my 12 Days of Christmas challenge, mostly because I hate Christmas and yeah this seems like a good idea to get some writing done and get over it a little bit. The idea for this story came from Katie, but the others in the series will come from The OTP prompt generator found at https://prompts.neocities.org/?otp. Some will be angsty, some will be fluffy, some will be AU and some will be in between. The smaller stories will be posted as chapters in a single story, and this is the first one of those! The prompt for this one is: 
> 
> Hope you enjoy and have a good holiday season!
> 
> Day 3 prompt: _Sleeping in the same room with Alex is proving to be extremely annoying to Richard because at 2am, they'll be trying to sleep and Alex will randomly start singing This Is Halloween from the god damn nightmare before Christmas like it isn’t the middle of fucking August._

Richard honestly doesn’t know how he lets himself get drafted into these sorts of things. Well, he does, but ending up in Tennessee in a terrible hotel room in August still doesn’t seem quite worth it. Oh, he’d let Alex talk him into it based on the fact that there was another Brothers of the Mount site that if one traced a straight line from, it would lead to the map quadrants that they’d been sent from the Hauster account. At the time, there’d been nothing in the news, but that had all changed when someone from the national parks service had reached out to Nic and the producers to see if they would come and investigate. 

So they had come to investigate in the middle of August. This place was to put it nicely: a fucking mess. It was hot, it was buggy and it was so humid that they’d needed to chew the air before they could breathe it. After several hours of hiking (not in a suit, much to Alex Reagan’s amusement) all Richard had wanted to do was to simply just shower and go to sleep in their air conditioned rooms. The air conditioned rooms were things started to fall apart honestly, because while they’d been assured that they’d been booked two rooms with single beds in them upon their exhausted and sweaty arrival they’d discovered that the air conditioning in that wing of the old motel was broken, and if they’d wanted a room with AC, there was only one left with it’s double beds. 

To Alex’s surprise, Richard had taken it immediately, and he just ignored the look that she had given him. Well, for the most part, because the one that he had returned to her had simply been a dare for her to disagree, because there is no way in hell that Strand is spending the night in a room with all of the sludge around them that poses as air. It’s something that Richard remedies as soon as they enter the shabby looking room with its dim lighting and no doubt lumpy beds. He’s never letting her talk him into this again, he decrees internally, even if in the end it hadn’t taken all that much convincing to get him to come along in the first place. 

While he stands in front of the air conditioning unit with it pulsing on full blast, Alex just comes to stand alongside of him, and she lets out a soft sigh. That sound is something that Richard knows shouldn’t even think about, which of course he can’t stop thinking about it. With the sweat gelling against their skin, Alex just asks: “are you okay?” _Is_ he okay? He’s sunburnt, probably has some variant of heatstroke and in the middle of the damned crime scene they found a copy of his book. He doesn’t think he’s okay. Of course, he’s not going to tell her that so what Richard settles on instead is: “I’m fine. I just need a shower.” 

When he turns the shower on, he starts it on cold at full blast, because the echo of that sigh of Alex’s is all around him. Perhaps, he conceded to himself, the single room was a terrible idea. Standing shivering in the cold water, Richard takes several gulps of it until he doesn’t feel so damned thirsty anymore. They’d carried water with them, but Richard ignored it on the way back, too lost in his thoughts about his book and the blood being there, but the bodies that the blood should have belonged to were not.

Eventually, he feels like he’s suffered enough and let’s the heat eat into his sore muscles as he scrubs away the grime from his body. When he comes out, he’s wearing his pajamas and barefoot, toting a first aid kit. 

He really should have broken in those hiking boots better. 

Alex has left the space in front of the air conditioning in order to perch on the desk. There’s money along side of her, so it makes sense when she says, I ordered dinner,” then before he can protest about her ordering something for him _here_ and not in Seattle like he would have been fine here she adds, “it’s from the only place in town that’s open. I got a pizza and a large salad. Hopefully those won’t be too hard for them to do.”

Making a noise of noncommittal, Richard just moves to sit on one of the beds. He knows all too well just how much small town places like this can mess up something as positively innocuous as a salad and a pizza. “You should shower, Alex. You’ll feel better if you do. If the pizza comes, I’ll get it.”

For a moment Alex just watches him and he knows that what she’s intending to say is not what comes out of her mouth when she warns: “so I can’t get the internet to work for anything and my phone is having terrible service. Just as a warning.”

“Surely you can live without the internet for one night, Alex. People have done it for thousands of years.” There’s amusement in his tone as he speaks and then she shrugs in response, a broad grin on her face. 

“Maybe. But I shouldn’t have to now. Anyway, I’ll be back.” 

While Alex is in the shower, the pizza does come and Richard dutifully puts it on plates and goes to get them soda from the vending machine. Oh, he doesn’t _intend_ to get soda, but that was all that was in the damned machine. Honestly he was starting to wonder if this place was allergic to fruits or vegetables and he’s pretty certain that he’s lost another three percent of his body mass to the sweat that the short mask has caused. 

When he comes back in, balancing the cans of coke and the key to the room (an _actual_ key which he still has a hard time believing) Alex is sitting on the other bed, combing her hair and watching some form of stop motion movie on the television. As soon as the thing starts singing, Richard just scowls. “What are you watching?”

“I went looking for the news but apparently this is the only channel that works on the tv.”

“Oh,” he sighs. Because that’s perfect. An Alex with no internet and no news is a bored Alex. A bored Alex is never a good Alex. A bored Alex always tends to get herself (and him) into trouble. Sitting on his bed and taking his pizza, Richard eats small bites of it. For nothing more in just engaging with her, Richard asks: “what _is_ this?”

“The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

Richard just snorts. “The Christmas season gets longer every year. It’s August fifteenth.”

“Technically I think this is both a Halloween _and_ Christmas movie. You see the skeleton guy? That’s Jack, he’s the Pumpkin King. But he’s bored with his life and discovers the door to Christmastown and wants to take it over.”

Richard just chuckles. “I’m sure the jolly fat man loves that.” His voice is heavy on the sarcasm. “But it’s still six weeks until Halloween too.”

“Yeah well, it’s an animation classic so it’s timeless.” Alex just shrugs the words as she finishes her piece of pizza. When Richard’s done she turns the television off and gets out her recorder as they go over the days events for it. 

Small between them is a little strangled, so Alex tries the tv again, hoping for more news about the case, but in the end The Nightmare Before Christmas is on _again_. 

“Didn’t we see this part?” Richard just asks confusedly. “Is this movie very long?”

“No. It must have started again.” But she doesn’t move to turn it off as she just grabs her pillow and lays on her stomach. It’s midnight when the movie starts up again. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Richard just muttered the words softly to himself. “I’m going to bed. You should try and sleep too.” He knows she won’t, but he needs to say it anyway. 

“I will,” she lies and turns off the television before Alex goes to brush her teeth. The room is almost dark when he comes out to do the same, and he can tell that she’s trying service on her phone again. 

“Alex,” Richard just says before he draws back the blankets on his bed and tosses them over the side, leaving just the top sheet. 

“Okay, okay.” She agrees, as Alex plugs the phone in to charge. “I’m going.” 

Like so often happens, the physical activity of the day takes its toll on Richard and he falls asleep relatively quickly. For all that he’s told Alex about wanting to stay fit, that’s honestly the reason that he’s so vigorous in his workouts: so that he doesn’t have any choice but to sleep. It’s two in the damned morning when he wakes up to a sound that is not entirely unlike a cat crying to the full moon. Staring at the ceiling for a moment, it takes him a second to realize that what he’s hearing is Alex Reagan _singing_. It’s low and quiet but she’s singing. 

“I am the one hiding under your bed, teeth ground sharp and eyes going red. I am the one under your stairs, fingers like snakes and spiders in my hair. This is Halloween. This is Halloween. Halloween Halloween Halloween.”

“Alex!” He snaps at her catching the blurry leds gleaming at him from the clock. “It’s two in the damned morning! Go to sleep!”

“What?! Oh god, I’m sorry Richard I didn’t mean to wake you up!”

To her credit she does sound apologetic. “Just. Go to sleep.”

“I’m trying! I can’t.”

Richard wants to snap at her to try harder but he knows damn well that doesn’t help anything. If trying made you go to sleep and stay asleep, Alex Reagan wouldn’t have needed to learn how to apply to the makeup that she does. So instead he just sighs and flops over onto his side, taking his frustrations out on the pillow below his head wadding it up with unnecessary vigor. 

It’s less than ten minutes later when she starts singing again. “Alex!”

“Fuck I’m sorry I didn’t even realize I was doing it.” 

It’s ten minutes later when the wadded up pillow is flung in her direction though even he can’t tell if it was an accident or on purpose. “I’m sorry I’m trying! It's just stuck in my head!”

“ _Try. Harder_.” The words are ground beneath his teeth as Richard just grabs the other pillow and covers his face with it. 

Not ten minutes pass when it starts again. “This is Halloween. This is Halloween.”

“ _This is August._ I swear Alex Reagan I will _gag you_.”

“Promises promises.” Alex counters in a tone that is most assuredly designed to make him shut up. 

“This is Halloween. This is Halloween.” Only this time it’s not Alex who sings it but Richard and his voice is certainly much better than Alex’s is. 

“See! I told you it was hard to get out of your head.”


	2. Day 4: Space, Distance, all of that.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 prompt: Alex and Richard playing on the swings at a small playground that nobody goes to anymore.
> 
> This is set during the infamous: 'the night was long' part of 212.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, just so everyone knows this isn't actually late. I have six thousand words of a story that was supposed to be the next prompt on this, but then the plot showed up and I decided that I didn't want to tag it as "Major Character Death" which I kind of have to considering it's a _Ghost AU_. So that story will probably be coming in the New Year. While these prompts will have some angsty parts of them, let's not go that angsty, shall we?

_Prompt: Alex and Richard playing on the swings at a small playground that nobody goes to anymore._

Perhaps it made sense, after everything. After the kidnapping or rescuing however they were describing it, after Strand’s conversation with Coralee, after the amount that they’d had to drink that Richard would grow tense and taunt in his father’s house. His pacing like a caged animal was starting to get to her, and all of the adrenaline that had kicked into high gear earlier seemed to come to Alex’s throat, cheap and metallic and not even Strand’s best scotch could get rid of it. Perhaps that was why she’d suggested that they went for a walk down to the store. It wasn’t that far and it was better than watching Richard slowly starting to unravel. 

Alex hadn’t expected Strand to agree to it, especially not so readily even if he did fill his tea tumbler with ice and an amount of scotch that was slightly worrisome. She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t explain even if Strand did something unexpected while the two of them walked as close to shoulder to shoulder that the space between them would allow given that foot height difference between them. Every so often, Strand would hand her the tumbler so that she could take a sip too. 

They’re on the sidewalk a few blocks from the house and nearly to the store when he asks: “why do you still do that, Alex?”

“Do what?” Alex sounds puzzled because she’s not said anything since they’d started walking. At least she doesn’t think she has, but then again she hasn’t drunk like this since the last PNWS Christmas party. 

“Call me Strand. Even after all this time and everything that we’ve been through. I think you only call me Richard when you don’t think about it or when you’re thinking about it very hard.”

Considering her response, she is quiet for a long moment. There’s been a lot tonight and Alex had turned off the recorder a while ago and now it was currently sitting on the couch in Strand’s father’s house but it still almost feels like it’s running somehow and there is the weight of the audience without it even being present. “I think a part of me thought that you might have preferred it that way, honestly. Space, distance and all of that.”

It’s Richard’s turn to be quiet as they walk, but he keeps glancing at her from the corner of his eye when he thinks Alex isn’t looking. Alex for her part is determined not to be caught looking at him and that’s how she found the fence that was practically overhung with ivy. The fence and the date and the orange light behind it makes her stop and look towards it. 

“What’s this?” The question is quiet and Alex moves to put her foot in the bottom of the wrought iron fence to look over the top. The sight there surprises her and she gasps. 

“Alex.” There’s concern in his voice as he moves to put one hand on her back so she doesn’t fall off. 

“Oh, it’s that old school that they closed. Right after they built the playground. Come on.”

“Alex,” Her name is a protest, and he stands behind her watching helplessly for a moment. 

“It’s right up your alley, Richard. Creepy abandoned school? Come on, you can tell me all the ways it’s not haunted.” Alex is half way up the fence by now and thankfully there’s not barbed wire at the top that she can see. Richard is still behind her, and when Alex misses a step he catches her and just holds her to his chest for a moment and Alex can’t tell if that’s her heart beating that fast or if she can feel his through her back. 

“If you’re so determined to do this,” he says softly but firmly. “There are safer ways to do so then climbing a damn fence.” He lets go of her then, now that Alex’s footing is on the ground and he starts to walk to the gate reaching into his pocket and pulling out a Swiss Army knife. 

“When did you start carrying that?”

“John Uvela isn’t the only Boy Scout that you know. Besides it seemed prudent when going to visit Warren.”

Alex laughs softly as he starts doing something to the chain holding the door to the fence in place. “I can’t believe you literally brought a knife to an almost gun fight, Richard.”

Coloring as he pushes the chains through the fence, Richard just says. “Yes well, I had assumed that they would overlook it in my pocket. I didn’t like the idea of having you so near to him without having any protection.”

Alex doesn’t know what to say to that as he holds the door open for her and she adds, “I can’t believe you know how to pick a lock with a pocket knife, Richard.”

“Well, I can't take credit for it. Ruby showed me how to do it early in our acquaintance. We were on an investigation and the likely culprit for the cause of the alleged haunting was behind one of these. So she taught me just in case.”

In the dim moonlight, Alex’s eyes just sparkle a bit. “Do you think she’d teach me?”

“Hell no.” The words come quickly and without the Dr. Strand filter that he’s been shedding so much tonight. “The last thing that the world needs is Alex Reagan adding to her law breaking skill set by learning to pick locks. You’re already a public nuisance and I would never be able to live with myself if I made that worse.” His voice sounds lighter than it has in a long time, really, since before there was the idea that Coralee was alive. There’s the sound of metal on metal as he makes the chains look like they were still attached, before he looked for Alex inside what is no doubt a playground that has been closed for a reason. 

“You know,” her voice carries easily through the quiet abandoned feeling of this place. “I’m actually not that bad. I do have my moments.” 

“I never said that the law breaking was to your disadvantages, Alex. Simply that I don’t want to add to them.” 

The scotch in the tumbler he’d handed her makes it easy for her to say: “jeeze, you open an unlocked door one time and find a body and suddenly you’re like, Selina Kyle or something.” 

“You’re too short to be Catwoman, Alex.” He chides with a chuffy laugh as they walk a lazy path to the swings which are still standing. Automatically, because she’s Alex, she sits on one of the swings, kicking her feet against the dirt below them. Richard just stands there awkwardly for a moment before Alex just grabs the swing next to her. 

“Have a seat, Richard. Swinging makes everything better.”

“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been on a swing, Alex? This thing is libel to collapse under our combined weight.”

Alex’s voice is teasing. “Are you calling me fat, Dr. Strand?”

Richard just gives her a huffy laugh before he sits down. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Ms. Reagan.” With his elbow hooking around the chain, Richard just takes a sip of his scotch before he offers the tumbler to Alex who mirrors his gesture. As he picks up his feet, Richard starts a forward motion, matching the slow pace that Alex is setting as they pass the scotch between them. 

Silence stretches out between them as they just swing incrementally higher and higher before Richard easily overtakes the height Alex is swinging at. When he looks over and sees that she’s putting actual effort into the movement now, he laughs again. “Shut up,” she protests, “you and your stupid long legs.”

“I suppose we could make it a race if you like.”

“Weren’t you the one just protesting about the structural integrity of this, Richard?” Alex teases but she doesn’t stop pumping and going higher. “Besides, you know how competitive I can be.”

“Yes, but I’m hardly Nicodemus or the interns playing Mario Kart with you now am I?” Alex had told him the story of course of how Nic had most assuredly cheated and that’s why he’d won the office crown. And how Paul and Terry have added that to the forbidden PNWS games along with Monopoly and ‘Attack Uno’ Whatever the hell that was. 

Of course, while he’s talking, Alex bumps into his swing, knocking off his momentum and forcing him to ask in a deceptively mild voice. “Are you attempting to cheat, Ms. Reagan?”

“Of course not, Dr. Strand. I don’t need to cheat.” Alex teases him back even as she does it again. 

This time however, Richard is ready for her and he grabs the swing’s chain, holding onto it enough to slow it down considerably. Of course what he’d normally have no problem doing if he were sober is a rather large one while intoxicated and he doesn’t take into account his own forward momentum. If he had been sober, it would have been an easy thing to correct, but right now he simply over-corrects and tumbles onto the plastic mat below the swing set. In his blind sort of stumble, Richard is still holding onto the chain of Alex’s swing, and thus it sends her landing directly on top of him. 

Both of them are slightly out of breath, and Alex just looks down at him, her face a mask of concern. “Richard, are you o--” Alex doesn’t have time to finish the sentence before he kisses her, his fingers tangled into the mass of her dark hair. For a long moment, she just kissed him back, her hand curled over his cheek. But then she draws back quickly, almost as if she’s been burned, and starts to scramble away from him, her cheeks blistering in the low light of the playground. 

For a moment, Richard just blinks and then his color matches her own before he stammers, “I took advantage, forgive me. I was just caught up in…” The mood, Alex herself, the amount of alcohol in his system, the way that Coralee had summed up and dismissed their marriage, _Alex Reagan_ , the moonlight, the way that they always flirted, even when he wasn’t a free man even though the cost of that freedom hurt and was sharp in his chest-- However, this new rejection is grinding a paste of lemon juice and salt into the wounds as Richard too scrambles back away from her with a sharp hiss as something sticks into his palm. 

The glass in the middle of it glistens, and the blood looks black on it, and Richard can’t help but think: _this is what Thomas Warren is after. All of this. All the last damned near thirty-five years for something as simple as a few drops of blood from an accident._

Alex is on her feet as she comes back over, and her voice is soft. “Are you okay?” The concern in her tone makes him want to scream, but instead he settles for a snap. 

“I’m _fine_ , Alex.” 

“No you aren’t. Come here. Sit on the swing.” Alex has already pulled her phone from her pocket, and she’s flicked the light on, destroying the quiet of the world around them by inviting fresh and more harsh shadows into it. He can see that she’s still red, but of course she’s going to go into caretaker mode. Of course she is. But Alex doesn’t let go of the back of his hand, her fingers curling around the underside of it to draw him up. Rising, he just sighs heavily, still fighting the urge to snap at her like a well-kicked dog, but not for the first time Richard suppresses that urge as Alex fusses over him. 

“I don’t think you need stitches,” she announces gravely, dragging the scarf that she’s wearing off her neck and downwards. “But I definitely should pull the glass out.” 

“I can handle this, Alex.” He does snap now, seemingly unable to help it. “Considering how little you want to be involved with me.” Jerking his hand away, Richard just cradles it to his chest and makes no movement to remove the glass. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Alex can be just as sharp, and she grabs his wrist and pulls it back towards herself, holding it single-handedly with a surprising force. 

“You know very well what I’m talking about, Alex.” Richard finds himself saying her name again because he can’t help it, and while it’s still a snap at least it’s not a snarl. Though he can’t promise how much longer he’s going to be able to control that impulse as she keeps trying to be such a fucking _good doer_ to him.

“Look Richard,” her voice is cold as she tucks her phone below her chin, shining the beam of the light at his hand so close to his heart. “If you want to kiss me, _really kiss me_ for the first time, don’t do it drunk and heartbroken, okay? I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a placeholder.” Somewhere in the middle of this, Alex grasps the glass carefully between two fingers and jerks it quickly but carefully out of his hand, and then presses the fabric of her pashmina to stop the bleeding. 

Richard yelps, and the yelp bleeds into his voice when he protests. “That’s not how I would ever think of you, Alex! Don’t project your own feelings on to me.” 

“Then don’t kiss me on the day when your wife leaves again!” Alex pulls the fabric off his hand and pours some of the scotch onto it, making him yelp again. 

“Are you always this abusive to someone who cares about you, Alex?” His voice is still sharp, but less so now.

“If I was going to be abusive to you, I wouldn’t have bothered to help.” She counters, her voice still hot. 

“Alex--” he starts, and she just shakes her head. 

“No. Tell me tomorrow, alright? Come on, let’s get you home and get a real bandage on this.” 

Richard sighs, but he nods. “Fine.” But he already knows that he won’t. That he can’t because Alex’s already given him an answer like this. Which is why he’ll get on a plane in a few days and not contact her for three months. 

It’s only in that three months that Richard Strand will realize that he’s both right and wrong about this. Alex Reagan _had_ given him an answer to it, in how she’d cared for him. He’d just been _wrong_ in what the answer actually _was._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry. I know this one ends on an angsty note, but tomorrow's fic is the direct sequel to it which fixes things. I promise.


	3. Day 5: I'm hoping I can make this right.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 5 prompt: Richard: I know that I hurt you. I know that nothing I can say will change the past. But…I’m hoping that you’ll forgive me in the end. I’m hoping that I can make this right.
> 
> Three months after the last time she'd spoken to Richard Strand (and he'd kissed her) Alex Reagan enters her office when the rest of the PNWS is on Christmas break to find Richard sleeping on her couch. Sequel to the prompt from the day before. (Missing scene from 301.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go. I promised to fix yesterdays and this is it! Updates may be sporadic over the weekend but I'm already working on the next prompt.

Prompt: _Richard: I know that I hurt you. I know that nothing I can say will change the past. But…I’m hoping that you’ll forgive me in the end. I’m hoping that I can make this right._

It's been three months since Alex Reagan had thought that she’d ended the world. The first month was the hardest for several reasons. First, Strand had disappeared again. He’d sent her a text message in the middle of the night after she’d forwarded the call to him from Simon, and it had simply read ‘ _I’m going to tell Charlie_.’ Alex understood that, she really did. She had even sent along the recording from the van in all of its unedited glory, and all of the monosyllabic answers that Coralee had given when Alex was questioning her, which other than the ‘hello Alex’ that they’d used in the show had included ‘someplace safe’ and ‘buckle up.’ Coralee hadn’t even said goodbye when she’d left, even if she had given Alex a strange and appraising look as she’d walked past out of Strand’s life again. 

Strand didn’t respond to the text. Not even with a ‘thank you.’ He didn’t respond to her questions about whether or not he’d landed safely, how Italy and Charlie were, the question about the weather. He didn’t even respond when Alex had sent him a frantic text six weeks later later after everyone at PNWS had been sitting anxiously in Nic’s apartment, watching the election results roll in and a Trump presidency become more and more certain. ‘ _Is this my fault?here_! 

Chewing on the overly sweet cookie for a moment Alex Reagan just considers the sleeping man on her sofa. Honestly, he looks like _hell._ He also looks beautiful and Alex isn’t sure if she wants to wake him up to shout at him, slap him, kiss him or all three. Given how they’d left things last time and how determined both of them had been not to discuss their kiss, any of those three would probably be acceptable especially since he’d not said one word to her in over three months. 

But in the end, Alex doesn’t do any of those things. Instead she just heads over to her desk chair and grabs the knitted blanket off the back of it for those nights when she’s here after they’d turned the heat off for the working day. After she covers him over, Alex just finishes her cookie and drinks her coffee as she watches him still not entirely sure if he’s really there or if he’d just disappear again as soon as she looked away for a second. 

While Richard Strand is fascinating and maddening in equal parts (and of course the most annoying one of both of those that she’d ever met) even Alex Reagan can’t watch him indefinitely. Maybe if he was awake and talking to her it would have been different (it would have been different) but with him asleep her brain is running in too many different damned directions. So Alex does what she does best—she throws herself into the newest pile of papers that she’d acquired and loses all track of time. 

“What are you working on?” His quiet voice, thick with sleep startles her and Alex almost drops her coffee before she stares at him for a long moment before she replies. 

“Thomas Warren’s shell corporate earnings from the EU. We think that he’s been slowly purchasing all of the area around the monastery at Gluska over the past two years.” Then Alex just leans back in her chair with her now ice cold coffee and asks: “what are you doing here, Richard? It’s been three months and there hasn’t been a word from you. And then you just show up in my office? You’re lucky I’m here now and not on holiday break with the rest of the staff.”

“Forgive me, Alex. I hadn’t realized it’s so close to Christmas. In all of my travel it appears that I’ve lost track of the time.”

“Where have you been?! I thought you said you were going to tell Charlie?” Alex doesn’t mean to sound like an accusation, but it can’t help but to be one. “Why didn’t you answer any of my texts or emails?”

“I _did_ go see Charlie,” Richard insists quickly. “I spent the first three weeks there with her at her home outside of Rome.” Chuckling softly he adds, “turns out teaching her how to speak latin wasn’t simply to drive the Jacobson’s crazy. Charlie has a knack for languages—-especially dead ones. When I explained to her what was going on, she wanted to be involved. The University where Charlie is getting her PhD is affiliated with the University of Baghdad. She’s been working there during her summers in training as a Cuneiformist.”

“A Cuneiformist?” Alex just asks curiously, because she can’t really help but to do it. Strand has always been good at capturing her imagination and he’s doing right now, despite how angry she is with him right now. 

“Someone who can read Cuneiform—ancient Bablyoian text. She also speaks Arabic so while we were at the university we went to the dig site from my father’s papers. The one at Hellah that was meant to be a preindustrial dig. But there was nothing there. No sign that a dig had ever had taken place there.”

“Was there more information about that in your father’s journal? The one that you’d gotten from Warren?” Mentioning Warren reminds Alex of how Richard had disappeared just after, and she doesn’t give him a chance to respond to the questions that she’d asked. “Why are you here _now_? What do you want?”

“I wanted. No Alex, I _needed_ to see you.”

“Why? What the hell is so urgent now when you’ve spent over three months avoiding me? Did Coralee reject you again?” Both of them are surprised by the vehemence in her voice and Richard visibly _flinches_. 

“I. I deserve that, Alex.”

“Yes, you do. You just kiss me and then don’t say a word to me for three fucking months. Even when I’m entirely freaking out, you don’t even come back with a ‘don’t be an idiot, Alex!’ You just left me twisting in the wind.” Alex just slams her coffee down on the desk, and then angrily mops up the sloshed coffee with her sleeve without thinking about it. 

“I’m sorry, Alex. I know that you think that I was just acting out with anger and grief at Coralee but I wasn’t. I was asking you a question that I’d never thought that I’d be able to do. Because I’d never be free to do it. But then I reacted so strongly because I thought you were answering it. And you did answer it, Alex. I know that you wanted me to kiss you, but I also know that you know me and you…” Richard’s voice drops lower. “You we’re trying to protect me. From myself.”

“I was.” Alex wishes that her voice was sharper than it is, but it just sounds sad. “And you hurt me for it. Like you always do.”

Rising to his feet, Richard’s hands are behind his back and he looks for all the world like a man who is being contrite for the first time in a very long time. “I know that I hurt you, Alex. I know that nothing that I can say that will undo the past. But...I’m hoping that you’ll forgive me in the end. I’m hoping that I can make this _right_.”

There’s a pause and for a long moment they just look at one another. “But why am I sensing that there’s a ‘but’ coming here, Richard.”

There’s a surprised smile on his face. “You really do know me too well, Alex,” which she acknowledges with a tilt of her head, clearly waiting for him to go on. “But I need to know if you want me for who I am or if you want me for the story. While Coralee said that she developed feelings for me, in the beginning I was nothing more than a means to an end. I don’t—no, I _can’t_ be that again.”

“Richard,” Alex starts, and she rises to her feet and walks over so that she’s standing next to him, and he automatically turns to face her, looking, Alex thinks, not unlike how she imagines a man who might look to face a firing squad. “There are a lot of things that I would do for a story. There are a lot of things that I’ve done for _this_ story. But I wouldn’t have done _half_ of the things that I’ve done if I didn’t have feelings for _you_. I wouldn’t have dragged you out of your office if I didn’t have feelings for you. I wouldn’t have stayed that night if I didn’t. If I was just going to sleep with you for a story, I wouldn’t have stopped kissing you that night. I—”

Whatever else Alex was going to say was cut off when Richard kisses her again. This time, there’s a desperate sort of sweetness to it as he moves his hands to rest at the small of her back and tug him so that she’s against him. Alex just molds herself to him, kissing him back just as softly and ardently. When she breaks off the kiss, it’s gentle, and her hand is on his cheek when she speaks. “Come on, Richard. Let’s go home. I mean back to my apartment.” 

“Anywhere you want to go, Alex. Because I’m never leaving you behind again. I promise.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are love. Also next time: Alex and Richard accidentally get married. TBT Style.


	4. Care and Feeding.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 4: Alex feeding Richard by hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know it's almost April. Yes, I know this isn't the story I was meant to add next (though it's still sitting in my docs waiting to be finished.) But nerdyvixen wanted a fic where Alex feeds Richard by hand so there we go!

Alex’s watch has definitely spun the entire way around once, and from the way that her back and her head were aching it had been several hours more than that. Somewhere around the last time she’d checked her watch, Alex knew that she had mentioned food to Richard who had shrugged her off saying that he was fine. Being as he was the one who normally cooked for her when they were mired at his father’s house, Alex hadn’t wanted to push then. 

Her stomach isn’t going to allow her not to push now. “I think we need a break,” her voice sounds exhausted now that Alex thinks about it, but Richard just hums, acknowledging that she made a sound without his hearing what it actually was. He’s on his third book about Calvin and the Reformation, having called in a favor from one of his colleagues at the University. Too bad Alex was the one who was going to need to actually fulfill said favor with reading Dr. Palmer’s no doubt very dry and very academic book on the subject of ghosts of something or other and giving a review of it. 

Maybe there’s some reasons to hope for the end of the world after all. 

Alex doesn’t bother to try Strand as she grabs her phone and heads into the kitchen opening the Grubhub app before she even gets to the door. There’s not one place with less than a two hour wait window. The other delivery services all have similar delays and Alex is reminded that it’s four in the morning and finals time. There’s no way they’re getting delivery. 

Letting out a long groan that has a bit of being put upon in it, Alex just throws open Strand’s fridge. None of this would be a problem if he just let her keep a reserve of EZMac or chicken nuggets in his fridge. For all of the lies she’d ever told on her show, the one about learning to cook from Hello Fresh was the biggest one. The only thing that she’d learned was how to make gourmet ashes and new and exciting ways to burn her hand and destroy her pans. 

The fridge for all of its space and size is fairly well empty and Alex just sighs for a moment before she grabs the dry erase marker on the board that Richard uses to make notes on for himself. And for Alex to do the same, honestly.. _Order some damned groceries!!!_ Yes, it is absolutely punctuated with three exclamation points because Richard is terrible about feeding himself and the last time she tried to do it for him it had ended with her going home with things that she donated to the interns and two lectures about boundaries: one from Nic and one from Richard himself. 

Opening the fridge again, Alex grabs the milk for her coffee and his tea, and starts futility poking within the cavernous depths. If her mother was here, she could have whipped up something amazing and in ten minutes flat, but Alex herself doesn’t have that luxury. After a few minutes of moving things around, Alex just lets out a sound of triumph. It’s not demon defeating or Horn of Tiamat knowing or Calvin finding, but it is a joyful sound nonetheless. 

When Alex returns it’s with two cups, a plate and the last sleeve of Richard’s earthy crunchy crackers in her teeth. “Ah. Alex, you’re back!” Richard says it like she was gone for hours and he’d been lecturing to an empty room for forty-five minutes instead of the ten she’d been gone. Knowing him, he probably has been. While he pulls out a large book with a map on it, Alex just calmly opens the sleeve of crackers. “I am more convinced than ever that it _is_ Geneva.” Richard is speaking in that excited, slightly manic if she didn’t know better way that he does when he’s had too much caffeine and not enough sleep and it’s been way too long since he’s eaten something that isn’t a power bar. 

“There was an Order of Monks there that had their monastery destroyed as the Reformation took control. It’s unsurprising really considering but what is surprising is that they were described as ‘ _Manteau Gris_.’”

“Gray coats?” Alex just asks because she does actually speak French, but Richard isn’t looking at her as he replies. 

“I expect that it’s a translation issue and what they actually mean is cloaks or robes. Which means there’s a possible Cenophus cell that was…” Richard’s voice is cut off considering that Alex has just popped a cracker with something on it into his mouth. The next words are mumbled and crumb-heavy. “What are you doing?”

“You need to eat,” Alex just says before adding things to her own cracker to make a stack. “And so do I. It’s been hours.”

Chewing at her while he watches her eat, Richard just swallows before asks: “what is it?” 

“Prosciutto and cheddar.” Alex says with her own mouth full, and she swallows as she makes him another one. “Not the most authentic of pairings but beggars can’t be choosers.” Offering him the one in her hand, Alex just waits for him to reach out and take it, but instead he opens his mouth again this time chewing it more thoroughly and swallowing before he speaks. 

“Not the most authentic snack,” he muses, “but one with the best presentation I’ve ever had.”

Alex just colors a bit as she finishes her own before she makes him another without asking and feeds it to him again. This time when she’s about to pull her hand away, he captures her wrist between his long, pianist fingers. Neither Alex or Richard speak when he catches the crumbs of the cracker and cheddar with his lips. Richard’s voice is husky when he muses, “definitely adds to the flavor.” A pause and then he asks, “may I?”

Without being sure what he’s asking exactly, Alex just mutely nods before Richard releases her wrist with a kiss to the pulse point there. Perhaps unexpectedly, he moves his hand to make her a stack of cheese, meat and cracker and offers it to her. Eating it daintily, with brown not looking away from blue, she just waits until it’s done to see what happens next. 

Alex doesn’t need to wait very long: Richard just leans over and kisses her slowly. When his tongue demands entry, she lets him in, and Alex knows that Richard is tasting her along with the snack he’d made. Pulling back, he just whispers against her lips. “Lovely. But as I expected, you’re what truly makes the whole thing sing.”

That just makes her laugh. “Really?” The line is a little hokey but Alex really doesn’t mind. “Either way, we’re going to finish this entire plate before you can kiss me again.”

“Are you holding me hostage for eating, Alex Reagan?” Richard sounds amused, and he’s wearing his wry smile and the emotion in his eyes. 

“Well, Dr. Strand,” in another time, Alex’s tone would be entirely too flirty but there’s no recorder running, and it’s not like they’re going to be taking a step back from the kissing thing. No, Alex is entirely certain that they’re going to be taking leaps forward over the line between them in the next ten minutes or so. “Considering I’ve finally found the solution to making sure you’re eating….” Richard interrupts her with his huffy laugh but Alex continues anyway: “I’m probably going to abuse it to make sure that you’ve got proper care and feeding now.”

Despite that, Richard does kiss Alex again, and she’s right about the line being crossed: she’s just wrong about how long it takes them to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are life bringing.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos make me happy!


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